Don’t let it show.

Cover it up.

Conceal anything that looks like a flaw.

Phhhhhhhttttt!  

NO! 

In my first book, Choosing Your Power, I talked about how we humans are perfectly flawed. We are, in fact, already perfect. If there were an ideal of perfection and everyone looked like that, just think how boring the world would actually be! 

The truth is, perfection is a verb. 

Sure there’s a noun, the state of being perfect, and you get there by perfecting the thing that you’ve dared to bring out of you.

Perfection is a dynamic, iterative process.

Perfection, the art of perfecting something, is a dynamic (never static) process.

And it’s iterative. It doesn’t come out as one and done. You didn’t. Not when you learned to walk, ride a bicycle, talk, or read. 

We love seeing the shiny and perfect.

And, I’m pretty sure if you think about it, you actually really like the dusty and scarred. There’s history in those scars and wrinkles. They’re usually well earned. And...

“Shhhhh! Don’t say it out loud; you’ll jinx it.”

Have you ever heard that?

Have you ever said that? 

I know, I used to be superstitious and felt like if I said a wish out loud or told anyone what I truly desired, that somehow it would be taken away from me. If I dared to tell someone my deepest wish, somehow, I’d be popping my own balloon.  

But then I started studying.

And I started experimenting.

And I encouraged others. And they started experimenting.  

It turns out that when you DARE TO DECLARE, you burst any feelings of jinxing something.

Here’s a solid truth for your consideration: 

CLARITY gives you certainty. 

And certainty builds confidence.

If you’re not confident, you’re giving energy to doubt. 

Where do YOU choose to put your energy?

Where do you CHOOSE to put your energy?

You know that you get more of what you focus on, so if it’s lack, you get that. If it’s abundance, you’ll have your eyes open for that. Also, both at work and at h...

Last week I wrote about just because you said you wanted something at one point in your life doesn’t mean that you need to keep doing that thing or retain that thing. The world has changed. You have changed.

That said, you may have goals and dreams and big aspirations that haven’t changed. And you may have things that need to get done to reach those big goals and dreams.

You need to do them.

And you need to do other things too.

I’m there with you. 

I find the other things that are important and keep me focused and feed my dopamine levels as I gamify how much I can get done.

Meanwhile, the things that are needle-movers for the goal sit.

And sit.

And sit.

And then comes the justifying and ration-of-lies-ing that we step into. The other stuff is SOOOO important. 

What about the goals? Did they stop being important?

You didn’t change them up. You just found other things to do before moving towards them.

It’s time to analyze the story and then give it ...

I just ordered lunch.

It arrived without incident.

Seeing it in front of me, everything shifted. That’s NOT what I wanted at all. 

Something shifted for me this time.

I didn’t eat it because I had ordered it.

I didn’t finish it because I paid for it and had to get every last piece of value out of what I had paid for.

I didn’t dive right in because I had committed to it and therefore needed to follow through with some sense of obligation.

No, I took a couple of bites, decided I had had enough, and put the rest away.

This WEDNESDAYS WITH WAYNE Blog post isn’t about food. It’s about decision making.

I got the value from my meal at the time I placed my order. 

When I purchase anything, when I open a new book, when I start a new project, when I’ve joined a new group, I give myself permission to pursue it to the fullest or to simply back away because it’s a mismatch. 

Alignment with values is key. And just because you start something doesn’t mean that new informa...

Change is in the air! Isn’t it great to see the new life that bursts through in the Springtime?! Trees have buds and flowers. Bees are back out. Birds are busy. And in town, things seem to be a little more bustling, too. 

There’s a different sense about the world, as well, right? 

You can feel it.

You can sense it, smell it, and feel the change happening.

And for the most part, we all think that’s pretty glorious.

(Some of us who have the seasonal pollen battle are mixed about how “glorious” this time of year is.) What’s true is that this time of year, the same way Autumn brought us the changing leaves and yielded to winter that gave us rain and snow (in most of North America, anyway), and that’s now offering up to us the Springtime changes we’re seeing all around us. 

What’s ironic is that as much as we look forward to the natural changes that we see outside of ourselves, we seldom look to the natural changes that happen within. And just as we plant various crops and fl...

Look up and away from whatever you’re reading this on. 

See what’s out there? 

Outside of you are forces that attempt to impact you. 

There are people, noises, weather conditions, smells, and so much more.

Notice that I said that they attempt to impact (or influence) you? 

You’ve got voices of authority clamoring to be heard. And everything else. It’s all sensory noise.

None of it – NONE OF IT – needs to affect your plans for becoming your next amazing iteration of yourself, as leader or friend or partner or explorer or philanthropist or whatever role you put yourself in. Nothing outside of yourself needs to affect your trajectory unless you deliberately call it in to support you in your quest.

And the quest could be simply to have a quieter future. That’s cool, too. Nothing outside of you needs to affect your path unless you deliberately call it in to support you on your path.

Some key points to highlight here:

The screamers out there – whether in your head, at...

Occasionally, my private client calls fuel some thoughts that I can pass along in this format. When a new client, who is a high-level professional woman dealing in contracts in the millions of dollars, was wrestling with the reasons she felt distracted, pulled in all directions, and couldn’t find any possible way to work on building herself, it sounded like she had been obligating herself into martyrdom. 

“I’m a giver,” she exclaimed, as if that was a reason to rush headlong into burnout. 

I stopped her. Somewhere in her past she had been rewarded for being the good girl who would make sure everyone else was okay and then see what might be left over for her. 

“STOP!” I demanded. 

She was surprised. Her stories had always carried her to the land of excuses, and she’d been celebrated as the heroine of her treacherous journey. 

Not today. Not… to… day!!!

“You are DONE living the life of obligation. Today, you open to potential and accept the journey that is yours.” I ...

Put one hand in the air.

Raise the other arm and put that hand in the air too.

Sway side to side.

Now scream, Aaaaarrrrgghhhhhhhh

If there’s a fire in the building, that won’t get you too far. But it could start a new dance craze!

I used to have a sign at my desk (when I work in the Corporate world) that said, “Failure to plan on your part does not constitute a crisis on mine.” That was my way of controlling the last minute deadline-driven dramatic cries for either attention or help. I wouldn’t put a sign up like that now. It’s kind of mean and honestly, I ended up helping people who had gotten themselves into jams. 

I think the distinction between crisis and drama is important. Occasionally events arise that are beyond our control. Occasionally those things require immediate, decisive action. Those times are rare though. 

If they’re not, then you’re likely creating drama and calling it a crisis. That is, unless you’re a first-responder or work in a trauma unit or ER...

If you learned to drive, you know that when you first approached the car as an early teen, it looked easy. And as you learned about speed and braking distance while building your proprioceptive capacity (you learned how big the car was so you could stay away from other cars and obstacles), you began integrating new skills.

It was fun. 

It was almost like a game. The more you learned, the more skills you had at your disposal. You “leveled up” your game and you became one with the car. You knew the sounds and vibrations. You knew the buttons and knobs.

You knew.

You knew because you learned. You deliberately put yourself in a position to learn and grow. Sometimes you failed along the way. And you kept going anyway.

When I was learning to drive, I ran over a gigantic rock in the roadway, something that had slid down from the hillside. I thought we had clearance. The undercarriage wasn’t so happy. Neither was my mom. And, I learned.

When I was traveling in a foreign...

Who’s to blame for this?

That question presupposes that someone or something outside of yourself can be held accountable when, if you’re posing a question about blame, you’re likely part of the problem.

A “gotcha” culture exists in organizations and families and never, ever has that kind of culture served anyone except the person at the top. 

If you’re accountable to yourself and your team, you’ll ask questions of yourself first. “What conditions did I allow/tolerate for this result to exist?”

The cat knocks over a precious item: “F’ing cat!!!” or… “What conditions did I allow/tolerate for this result to exist?” (Actually, if you have a cat, it’s probably both of those reactions.)

A team member blows a sale with a potentially huge client. 

Fire the team member? Train them?

Again, the question is, “What conditions did I allow/tolerate for this result to exist?”

Some other answer might crop up so that the situation never happens again.

Seriously, what’s THE WORST ...